About

Professor Yet-Ming Chiang is the Kyocera Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. His research focuses on designing, synthesizing, and characterizing advanced materials and devices for use in clean energy technologies, including low-carbon transportation, grid-scale electrical energy storage, and sustainable manufacturing. His group studies electrochemical storage materials and devices, electrochemical processes for the decarbonization of materials production, and the mining, separation, and recovery of elements from various feedstocks. Key projects include exploring novel conduction mechanisms in solid electrolytes, developing solid-state batteries, batteries for electric aviation, low-cost scalable grid storage batteries, decarbonization of cement production, and electrochemical mining of ashes and wastes. Professor Chiang earned his BS in materials science and engineering from MIT in 1980 and his doctorate in ceramics from MIT in 1985. His laboratory's work ranges from basic research to process and prototype development, and he has successfully brought several discoveries to commercialization, such as high-power lithium iron phosphate batteries, more efficient lithium-ion battery manufacturing processes, batteries for long-duration grid storage, and electrochemical cement production. He co-directs a flagship project under MIT Climate Grand Challenges on the decarbonization of industrial materials production. Professor Chiang is a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society, Materials Research Society, American Ceramic Society, and the National Academy of Inventors.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Composite material
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Materials science
• Metallurgy
• Nanotechnology
• Geometry
• Systems engineering
• Chemical engineering
• Aerospace engineering
• Physical chemistry
• Forensic engineering
• Ecology
• Thermodynamics
• Aeronautics
• Organic chemistry
• Structural engineering
• Electrical engineering
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• Adaptive Voiding Enables Interfacial Morphological Control at Low Stack Pressure in Solid-State Batteries

  ChemRxiv · 2026-03-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Solid-state batteries with alkali metal anodes offer high energy density and improved safety, but their performance is hindered by void formation at the metal-solid electrolyte interface during discharge. These voids lead to contact loss and impedance rise, and increase the probability of dendrite formation upon plating. While high stack pressures (≥1 MPa) can suppress voiding, they impose engineering constraints that reduce pack-level energy density. In this work, we demonstrate that adding low concentrations (<5 vol%) of potassium metal to industrial-grade lithium metal creates a dispersed Na-K liquid phase that suppresses voiding and enables stable, high-capacity stripping at practical current densities and stack pressures below 1 MPa. Additionally, we identify a low-frequency oscillatory impedance response which we attribute to "adaptive voiding"-the cyclic expansion and contraction of interfacial voids arising from the interplay of contact loss and stress-driven lithium deformation. This behavior, characterized by cryo-PFIB imaging and electrochemical analysis, offers a diagnostic signature for evaluating interfacial stability in alkali metal-solid electrolyte systems. These findings highlight new opportunities for designing robust, high-capacity solid-state batteries operable under realistic mechanical constraints by leveraging dynamic interfacial morphological control.

  PublisherDOI

• Electrochemical corrosion accompanies dendrite growth in solid electrolytes

  Nature · 2026-03-25 · 1 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Process-based cost assessment of electrochemical metals recovery from municipal solid waste incineration ash

  Waste Management · 2026-03-27

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Electrochemical-Based Techniques in Hydrometallurgical Processes Towards Sustainable Mining

  ˜The œminerals, metals & materials series · 2026-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Reactive Carbide‐Based Synthesis and Microstructure of NASICON Sodium Metal All Solid‐State Electrolyte (Adv. Mater. 16/2026)

  Advanced Materials · 2026-03-01

  article

  NASICON Sodium Metal All Solid-State Electrolyte An electric float plane landed on a remote lake in Katmai National Park and is being fueled for the return trip using a standalone solar-powered charging station. The solid-state sodium batteries inside the plane are based on an advanced NASICON-type electrolyte, which is both durable and low cost. The environmentalist who traveled to this location to live among the bears is proud of his low CO2 footprint, which may soon go to net zero. More details can be found in the Research Article by Callum J. Campbell, David Mitlin, and co-workers (DOI: 10.1002/adma.202512961).

  PublisherDOI

• Process-based cost assessment of electrochemical metals recovery from municipal solid waste incineration ash

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Effective Li-Ion Transport Quantification in Composite Cathodes for All-Solid-State Batteries via Multiscale Modeling and Experiments

  Chemistry of Materials · 2025-11-13

  article

  The tortuosity factor of composite cathodes significantly affects the rate performance of all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) and has significant differences from systems with liquid electrolytes. In this work, we report a simulation-experiment combined approach that quantifies the effective Li-ion transport in an ASSB composite cathode, which links tortuosity factor on ∼ μm scale to terminal voltage during cycling at the cell level (on ∼ cm scale). Two independent approaches of tortuosity factor quantification are considered: fitting electrochemical cycling data and verifying at different cycling rates and calculating from segmented tomography images, with the tortuosity factor quantified from both methods reaching self-consistency. The simulated terminal voltage using the quantified tortuosity factor has a small relative error of <3% compared to the experimental measurements. We find a significantly reduced value of the Bruggeman exponent of the catholyte phase (1.75), and using shape analysis, we show that rod-shaped catholyte particles play an important role in lowering the tortuosity factor.

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding the Role of Borohydride Doping in Electrochemical Stability of Argyrodite Li ₆ PS ₅ Cl Solid‐State Electrolyte

  Advanced Materials · 2025-07-15 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract This work elucidates the mechanism by which lithium borohydride (LiBH 4 ) doping into argyrodite‐type Li 6 PS 5 Cl (LBH‐LPSCl) solid‐state electrolyte (SSE) enhances electrochemical stability. State‐of‐the‐art electrochemical performance is achieved with 5 wt% borohydride. Symmetric cells achieve critical current density (CCD) of 7.3 mA cm −2 , versus 2.6 mA cm −2 for baseline‐LPSCl. All solid‐state batteries (ASSBs) employing lithium metal and NMC811 cathode are stable over 400 cycles at 0.5C, with capacity retention of 83%. An anode‐free ASSB (AF‐ASSB) is stable over 600 cycles, with capacity loss of 0.04% per cycle. 5LBH‐LPSCl allows for enhanced low temperature operation, down to −14 °C. Yet the difference in electrolytes’ bulk microstructures and hardnesses are minimal, while ionic conductivity is incrementally improved (≈50%). Theoretical modeling indicates limited effect of substitution on thermodynamic stability of PS 4 3− units, which decompose when contacting Li. Instead, enhanced electrochemical stability is site‐specific kinetic effect: In situ electrodeposition experiments using X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and time‐of‐flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF‐SIMS) reveal tri‐layer SEI based predominately on Li 3 P/LiBH 4 /Li 2 S that blocks electrons while facilitating ion transport. This SEI manifests reduced interface resistance and accelerated nucleation and growth of metallic Li. With baseline‐LPSCl the SEI based on Li 3 P/Li 2 S is substantially thicker, generating localized stresses that promote interfacial cracking while cycling.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Electrochemical Oxidation in Garnet-Type Solid Electrolyte by Formation of Point Defects

  Chemistry of Materials · 2025-07-31 · 1 citations

  article

  All-solid-state batteries hold greater promise for improving safety and energy density over conventional battery technology employing organic liquid electrolytes. One of the required features of a Li+ conducting solid electrolyte is electrochemical stability, attained thermodynamically or kinetically, within the targeted operating voltage and temperature ranges. Therefore, understanding of the oxidative or reductive degradation mechanism is important to allow the design of stable solid electrolyte materials. This work contributes to building an understanding of the oxidative degradation mechanism in lithium solid electrolytes at cell operating conditions. Here, we have focused on resolving the oxidative decomposition mechanism of Al-doped lithium garnet Li6.28Al0.24La3Zr2O12 (LLZO) as a state-of-the-art inorganic ceramic electrolyte. By combining experimental and computational analyses, we show that oxidation of LLZO occurs by simultaneous loss of oxygen and lithium from the structure, resulting in substoichiometric LLZO, at a moderate temperature (80 °C) and a high electrode potential (4.3 V vs Li/Li+). Based on X-ray absorption and diffraction analyses, we find that the zirconium coordination shells in LLZO contract while the crystal structure experiences positive chemical strain upon electrochemical oxidation. The results from ex situ structural characterization of both the local structure and crystal symmetry are supported by a substoichiometric LLZO with lithium and oxygen vacancies, modeled by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. These chemical and structural changes in LLZO suppress effective lithium-ion conductivity by an order of magnitude. Formation of lithium and oxygen vacancies in LLZO upon electrochemical oxidation is different from prior thermodynamic predictions of phase decomposition of LLZO. The difference here is that the experiments were conducted at near-room temperature, which can hinder the kinetics of phase separation, and thus, the resultant LLZO solid electrolyte is still single-phase but substoichiometric in Li and O. These findings contribute an important degradation mechanism of the electrolyte, relevant for practical operational conditions of solid-state batteries.

  PublisherDOI

• Effect of Weakened Bond Covalence on the Electronic, Thermal, and Elastic Properties of Disordered Graphite Monofluorides

  The Journal of Physical Chemistry C · 2025-06-03 · 1 citations

  article

  Graphite monofluoride ((CF)n) has promising applications as a high-energy battery cathode and is known to possess a disordered structure. Despite many previous studies, the structure–property relationship is still not well understood due to challenges in determining the effects of structural disorder. In this work, we develop a machine learning interatomic potential (MLIP) with the NequIP architecture that predicts (CF)n properties at Density Functional Theory (DFT) level accuracy. We use this potential to study possible modes of structural disorder and find that both interlayer stacking disorder and intralayer fluorine conformation disorder are required to quantitatively reproduce the experimental X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern. The (CF)n structure–property relationship is analyzed using disordered (CF)n structures predicted by MLIP. We find that the electronic band gap increases by 0.69 eV when the structure is 0.49 eV/CF less stable than the lowest-energy structure, owing to local fluorine conformation distortion and reduced C–F bond covalence. Thermal properties, including heat capacity and vibrational entropy, are only slightly affected by thermodynamic instability, by less than 15%. Both bulk and shear moduli decrease linearly by over 40% as the formation energy increases by 0.49 eV/CF. This increase in formation energy is also linearly correlated with elongation of the C–C and C–F bonds, which indicates a decrease in bond covalence. We believe that these correlations pave the way for a more thorough understanding of (CF)n, and could serve as a useful metric for designing (CF)n with a low electronic band gap and high elasticity.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Mechanical and Electrical Reliability Maximization of Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Batteries through Microstructure Design

  NSF · $73k · 2009–2012

Frequent coauthors

• Fikile R. Brushett

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  85 shared

• W. Craig Carter

  63 shared

• Ming Tang

  University of Science and Technology of China

  53 shared

• Kevin M. Tenny

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  44 shared

• R. M. Cannon

  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  35 shared

• Sung‐Yoon Chung

  Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

  35 shared

• William H. Woodford

  Form Energy (United States)

  32 shared

• M. Gautier-Soyer

  Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives

  32 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  1990

• M.S., Materials Science and Engineering

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  1985

• B.S., Physics

  California Institute of Technology

  1983

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the Electrochemical Society
• Fellow of the Materials Research Society
• Fellow of the American Ceramic Society
• Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors
• 2016 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Award